Philippines-linked investment company UAC Energy Holdings has launched a $777 million bid for Infigen Energy, which would see its own vast renewables portfolio in Australia combined with a range of projects developed by the Sydney-based renewables company. The announcement followed hot on heels of the confirmation that UAC took a 12.8% stake in the target company through an on-market raid on Tuesday.
Following the on-market buying, which was handled by Credit Suisse on UAC’s behalf, the Philipines firm said it now intended to make an all-cash takeover bid of $0.80 a share, for a total of $777 million. The offer described as “attractive” is 43.4% higher than the one-month average price of Infigen’s share, which stands at $0.56.
If successful, UAC would acquire seven wind farms and a 600 MW pipeline of projects that the developer recently deferred to save money, according to Reuters. Infigen’s wind projects are located across New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia, including the Lake Bonney Wind Farm which is collocated with one of South Australia’s three big batteries. The 25MW/52MWh Lake Bonney Tesla battery was energized last year.
“The businesses of Infigen and UPC/AC Renewables Australia are complementary from an investment perspective,” UAC chairman Anton Rohner said in a statement. “We have ready access to capital and significant renewable energy expertise that will position us well to support Infigen’s pipeline of projects and focus on much needed renewable energy investment and associated employment in Australia.”
UPC’s development portfolio in Australia includes a number of massive projects: the 1,000 MW Robbins Island Renewable Energy Park and the 1,200 MW Jim’s Plain Renewable Energy Park in north-west Tasmania, both of which would form a major part of the state’s Battery of the Nation Project.
The bidder has the NSW state government’s approval to develop the 720 MW New England Solar Farm in regional New South Wales. It is also pursuing the 300 MW Bridle Track Solar Farm in South Australia, the 160 MW Axedale Solar Farm in Victoria, and the 250 MW Baroota pumped hydro project in South Australia.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
“Philippines-linked investment company UAC Energy Holdings has launched a $777 million bid for Infigen Energy, which would see its own vast renewables portfolio in Australia combined with a range of projects developed by the Sydney-based renewables company. The announcement followed hot on heels of the confirmation that UAC took a 12.8% stake in the target company through an on-market raid on Tuesday.”
Here it comes, the leveraging and “hostile takeover” of companies with lots of public entrenchment and low capital reserves. In countries that have a lot of IOUs, these Investor Owned Utilities may start “preying” on each other sooner than later. There are so many (EPC) businesses out there, that large energy developments are being built in the sphere of influence of large energy companies like Duke, Sempra, Pinnacle, NRG Energy. Duke has been relatively aggressive in buying out solar PV farms in the South West and adding them to their energy portfolio. Other IOU energy companies allow PPAs with these entities and depend on them to operate and maintain these facilities at least until the end of the PPA. I think the long term plan is for very large entities like Duke, they will buy up alternative energy in one of the regions large IOUs, and sell to the local utility for years, when the time comes, entities like Duke have the generation capacity to step over the regional electric utility and take it over with a cash offer. It will be interesting to see how many very large electric utilities are left in 10 years. Even Shell Oil, Total are buying up alternative energy entities to put into their investment portfolios.